]]>In recent years, traditional Islamic seminaries, or madrasas, have come under scrutiny and criticism as incubators of terrorism and extremist interpretations of Islam. Correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro has a report on one school, the Jamia Islamia Clifton madrasa founded 40 years ago in Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi, that is trying to change that image and broaden the scope of what students are taught.

]]>http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2015/07/17/july-17-2015-a-different-pakistan-madrasa/26504/feed/0Islam,Islamic extremism,madrasahs,Pakistan,Salafists"There's threat to whatever we do here at Jamia Islamia. But for me, it is a mission," says Mufti Abu Huraira, whose father established the Jamia Islamia Clifton madrasa where students are vetted for any ties to extremist activities and political discu..."There's threat to whatever we do here at Jamia Islamia. But for me, it is a mission," says Mufti Abu Huraira, whose father established the Jamia Islamia Clifton madrasa where students are vetted for any ties to extremist activities and political discussion is forbidden.Religion & Ethics NewsWeeklyno7:02 Islamic Art Gallerieshttp://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2012/07/27/july-27-2012-islamic-art-galleries/12067/
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There are motifs that you find across a very wide geographic spread, and that wouldn’t have happened if those regions hadn’t been unified by a single religion, being Islam.

The use of the Arabic script, of course, spread, as the religion spread. They reverse it, they do mirror writing, tiny writing, huge writing.

The written word in Islam is of absolute paramount importance. And the act of copying a Quran is an act of devotion, religious devotion.

A mihrab is, of course, the central focus in a mosque. It’s what people face when they pray and in a mosque would be lined up so that the people facing it are facing the direction of Mecca.

We have glass mosque lamps. We have one or two ceramic ones as well. They were probably made in sets to be used in mausoleums and madrassas and mosques.

Our newest gallery is our Moroccan court, which was built here over a six-month period by a group of craftsmen from Fez. What it is is an adaptation of the type of courtyard that one finds in several madrassas, religious schools or seminaries, in Fez. But, you know, our court is just tiny by comparison to those, so the challenge really was that we had to design it in such a way that they could kind of shrink but keep the proportions right. The tile panels are actually inspired by a tile panel in Alhambra.

One of the stories we wanted to tell, really, was about the complexity of society in Spain while it was still under Muslim control, and so we have actually two Hebrew manuscripts. The Hebrew Bible is fascinating because it has a page with what looks like geometric designs. But then if you look closely you realize that all these geometric designs are made from micro-writing, and in the same case we have pages from a Quran that was written in micro-writing. So not only were the geometric designs being shared and used by people of different faiths, but also the whole idea of this tiny writing seems to have appealed to both Muslims and to Jews in Spain.

We have a recent acquisition, actually, which is a painting that depicts the goddess Bhairavi Devi, and she sits with the god Shiva in a sort of charnel ground. It’s a Hindu subject; it’s a ferocious Hindu subject, in fact, and it has this goddess whose eyes are just drilling the viewer. So it just shows, especially in a place like India, what a completely complex society in terms of religion it was at the time.

Muhammad is depicted in certain contexts. There were illustrated histories which show the life of Muhammad. Then in the poetic context, really in mystical poetry, we find depictions of this Mirage, the Night Journey, and he’s riding on a human-headed horse up to heaven. These were images that were painted by Muslim painters for Muslim patrons. So it was completely within a Muslim context that they were done. There was nothing untoward at all about them.

What I would hope is that people would understand that although the religion infuses all of these lands and these historical periods that regions were individual, and regions had particular styles. And also the commonality with mankind, which is that we all have—we all eat and have bowls to eat from, we all, you know—there are so many things that are common to all of us, and to think of things in that way, I think, humanizes the religion and humanizes the objects to people who are not familiar with it.

The many works on view at the Met in New York demonstrate how artistic motifs were shared and used by people of different faiths in different regions over the centuries./wnet/religionandethics/files/2012/07/thumb01-islamic-art-gallery.jpg

]]>http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2012/07/27/july-27-2012-islamic-art-galleries/12067/feed/0Art,Hebrew,Hinduism,Islam,madrasahs,Metropolitan Museum of Art,mosque,Poetry,Prophet Muhammad,quranThe many works on view at the Met in New York demonstrate how artistic motifs were shared and used by people of different faiths in different regions over the centuries.The many works on view at the Met in New York demonstrate how artistic motifs were shared and used by people of different faiths in different regions over the centuries.Religion & Ethics NewsWeeklyno5:00 Kashmir Disputehttp://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2012/05/04/may-4-2012-kashmir-dispute/10904/
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FRED DE SAM LAZARO, correspondent: Kashmir has long been known for its peaceful vistas but for the 13 million inhabitants this mountainous region has been anything but peaceful. It is one of the world’s most militarized places. India alone has an estimated 600,000 troops in the part it controls, four times the number of American soldiers who were in Iraq at the height of that war. Although it has a two-thirds Muslim majority, Kashmir as a whole is quite diverse, the southern region mostly Hindu, the northeast Buddhist. But for six decades this province with a land mass the size of Idaho has been bitterly fought over by India and Pakistan.

It all dates back to 1947, when the departing British decided to partition the newly independent India. Muslim majority areas were to form the new republic of Pakistan. But Kashmir had a Hindu ruler, and he opted under pressure to join India. That set off the first of three major wars between India and Pakistan, ending in a ceasefire with India controlling about two-thirds of Kashmir, Pakistan most of the rest. The so-called “line of control” that divided Kashmir has served as an international border for 65 years, but Kashmir has festered as a sore point between the Islamic republic of Pakistan and mostly Hindu India.

Although the conflict has long been cast in religious terms, Joseph Schwartzberg, a leading scholar on Kashmir, says it’s more complicated than that. And within Kashmir, he says, there’s a long tradition of tolerance.

PROFESSOR JOSEPH SCHWARTZBERG: The Hindus frequently attended religious ceremonies that were held by Muslims, and the converse was also true. In terms of actual day to day religious practices it was a fairly eclectic area, and the type of strident militaristic Islam that we think of when we think of, say, the Middle East—that was not present in Kashmir at all.

DE SAM LAZARO: That began to change in the 1980s in Indian-held Kashmir with more religious tension and extremism. Schwartzberg blames corruption, non-functioning local government, and meddling from India’s capital Delhi in local elections.

SCHWARTZBERG: India is a pretty good functioning democracy in most parts of the country, but with respect to Kashmir it was exceptional. They felt that they couldn’t afford to lose elections. They managed to rig election after election, and the people simply got fed up. In 1987—and it was a pretty corrupt administration, so the people just had it— they initiated a series of demonstrations which were put down with a heavy hand, and in 1989 it really got out of hand, and the Indian government moved in in force.

DE SAM LAZARO: The clampdown triggered a militant separatist insurgency—or vice versa, depending on who is telling the story. India has blamed Pakistan, especially its intelligence service, and Islamist extremist groups. Pakistan says it offers only moral support for the insurgents. Groups like Human Rights Watch blame militant groups, but they also finger Indian security forces for widespread abuses under the guise of rooting out militants. India insists that most are infiltrators from Pakistan-held regions and beyond. Tens of thousands of civilians have died or gone missing. Kashmir’s grand mufti, the top religious leader recognized by India’s government, also blames both sides for excesses, and his numbers are much higher.

BASHIR UDDIN AHMAD (Grand Mufti): Since 1989, when the situation became more critical, hundreds of thousands of people are missing and hundreds of thousands more have been killed. We have no knowledge of where they are. The killing continues unabated, and the situation is still simmering.

DE SAM LAZARO: In recent years, the Kashmir dispute has taken on a new dimension as India has announced plans to build several dams, seeking hydro-electric power for its fast-growing economy. But Kashmir’s rivers also irrigate the breadbaskets of both India and Pakistan. So far there have been no problems sharing the waters under an internationally brokered treaty in 1960. However, Pakistan says the Indian dams could affect seasonal water flows to its farmland.

KAMAL MAJIDULLA (Pakistan Presidential Advisor): It’s devastating, because if the waters are not available to me in the quantities that I need them at the time that I need them, then I’m looking at a very low productivity of my agricultural sector.

DE SAM LAZARO: Pakistan has taken its protest to arbitration provided for under the Indus water treaty. India insists it is in full compliance. However, the fact that India, being upstream, could in theory manipulate flows could be politically toxic, particularly after the severe floods Pakistan has endured in recent years.

Hafiz Saeed is a man the US government has branded a terrorist and for whose capture it has offered a $10 million bounty. Saeed has blamed India for worsening the flooding. Pakistani presidential advisor Kamal Majidulla says such rhetoric resonates among farmers who are hurting.

MAJIDULLA: The farming community, which otherwise could look after their children, are unable to do, so the children have been going off and staying in madrassas instead of going to the local school system, because the madrassas feed them. I’m not saying all madrassas are bad. They do perform a social function, and some of them perform a very good social function, but a fair number of them are not. And this is where the cannon fodder comes from. So there is a direct linkage between water availability, low agricultural productivity, and the rise of terrorism.

DE SAM LAZARO: Officials in India’s capital Delhi say the Pakistani fears of water treaty violations are overblown. Ashok Jaitly, a scholar at a Delhi-based think tank, says the bigger threat is poor conservation and water mismanagement on both sides.

ASHOK JAITLY (Energy Resource Institute): If you had a cooperation based on good scientific river basin management of the Indus basin, and that’s where the Indus water treaty does not provide for it, it only provides for sharing of water. It does not provide for scientific integrated river basin management. If you could have that, then I think a lot, I won’t say all the problems would be solved, but a lot of the problems between India and Pakistan would be resolved, or could be resolved.

DE SAM LAZARO: Back in Kashmir, long squeezed as its two nuclear armed neighbors fight over it, Mufti Bashar Uddin says growing numbers want no part of either.

MUFTI UDDIN: As a religious leader, I would tell the people that if the option of independence is offered, that would be the best bet for Kashmir.

DE SAM LAZARO: That seems highly unlikely—both India and Pakistan reject the idea. So, to most analysts, does any quick resolution of the Kashmir stalemate. In recent months, there’s been a thaw in relations between India and Pakistan, with proposals to vastly increase the amount of trade across the border. Coincidence or not, Kashmir has enjoyed one of its quietest periods in years. The natural beauty is once again luring tourists. In 2011, more than one million visitors came here, most of them Indian. It remains to be seen whether and how much more tourism and commerce can repair 65 years of suspicion and upheaval.

For Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, this is Fred de Sam Lazaro.

In this territorial dispute between India and Pakistan in what may be the world’s most militarized region, there are direct links between water availability, rising terrorism, and religious extremism among Hindus and Muslims./wnet/religionandethics/files/2012/05/thumb02-kashmir.jpg

]]>http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2012/05/04/may-4-2012-kashmir-dispute/10904/feed/4Hinduism,India,Islam,Islamic extremism,Kashmir,madrasahs,Pakistan,TerrorismIn this territorial dispute between India and Pakistan in what may be the world’s most militarized region, there are direct links between water availability, rising terrorism, and religious extremism among Hindus and Muslims.In this territorial dispute between India and Pakistan in what may be the world’s most militarized region, there are direct links between water availability, rising terrorism, and religious extremism among Hindus and Muslims.Religion & Ethics NewsWeeklyno7:58 Madrasahshttp://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2002/06/21/june-21-2002-madrasahs/8062/
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]]>BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: In the aftermath of 9/11, as many Americans tried to learn more about Islam, much was said about “madrasahs.” They are the Islamic schools, some of which, in Pakistan, taught young men not just the Qur’an but terrorism. Madrasahs, it turns out, have a long and distinguished history in the Islamic world and may hold the key to whether Muslim scholars can once again welcome the ideas of others. Roy Mottahedeh is a professor of Islamic history at Harvard. We asked him to turn essayist and correspondent and tell us about madrasahs.

ROY MOTTAHEDEH (Islamic scholar, Harvard University): The first words revealed to Muhammad, and it says “read or recite in the name of your Lord.” I can see the impulse for learning in the very first words of the revelation.

Here we are in a Qur’an school, the first stage of a madrasah education. A madrasah is a place of learning and teaching. These Moroccan children are learning to write and recite the Qur’an as children have done all over the Muslim world since the beginning of Islam.

Most Muslims believe that the Qur’an is a literal transcript of the very words God revealed to the prophet Muhammad. So they consider it extremely important to guarantee that the Qur’an is accurately passed down from generation to generation. When one sees a Qur’an this big, you understand why people needed Qur’an stands. No faithful Muslim would disagree with God’s words. But it is not so easy to know precisely what the intentions behind the divine messages are.

Believers have always struggled with this question. Some thought that religious inquiry should be supervised and limited. Others felt that any person or idea might illuminate God’s meaning.

In Islam, there is no official clergy or final religious authority to settle the question. After the death of the prophet, as the borders of the Islamic world expanded, Muslim scholarship absorbed elements from different cultures — many new ideas passed into the madrasahs and became a standard part of Islamic learning.

The oldest teaching mosque is probably the Qarawyyin, which was founded in Fes, Morocco, in 859. In such mosque schools, young scholars sit on the floor at the feet of one of the ulema, or teachers, just as they did a thousand years ago. They may be studying grammar, logic, jurisprudence, or other disciplines necessary to interpret the Qur’an.

By the year 1100, many of these mosque schools for young men acquired dormitories and became boarding schools. Religious endowments and shops built next to the mosques provided stipends for the students and salaries for the teachers. By the 13th century, the madrasah had become an integral part in the life of any important Muslim town.

The madrasah had great virtues — it gave Muslims a common education, which enabled them to talk to each other across the Islamic world. It incorporated elements of Hellenistic learning, which had been translated into Arabic in the early Middle Ages. Here is the beginning of the second chapter of the book of Aristotle on ethics. Aristotle was so revered that some Muslims claimed he was a prophet, sent by God to the Greeks. Classic madrasah education brought progress and higher learning to the Muslim world.

But, in the 12th and 13th centuries, under continuing threat, first from the Crusades and then the pagan Mongols, the Muslim world began to close in upon itself; the scope of madrasah learning and interest in the outside world also began to narrow. The madrasah, for all its great virtues, also had great shortcomings. There was, after a certain point, fear of new learning. Muslim mathematicians, who passed on from India the all-important zero, continued to develop algebra. But in the madrasah, interest in algebra became confined to explaining the complex assignment of inheritance shares.

Astronomy was a science where Muslim scholars were brilliant innovators — many stars have Arabic names. But astronomy as taught in the madrasah was limited to those aspects, which explain the direction and times of prayer. By 1400, scholars of the madrasah had grown largely indifferent to ideas from elsewhere. Ideas were no longer fully open to discussion. That the madrasah remained unaware of developments in early modern Europe would have grave consequences for the Muslim world. When Napoleon captured Cairo in 1798, the event became a symbol of the superiority of European military and economic power.

Faced with the humiliation of European colonial domination, some Muslim countries instituted public education independent of madrasah schooling in attempts to “catch up.” But there were some Muslims who blamed the weakness of their societies on the supposed “impurity” of life. They launched a movement for a purified Islam and wanted only what they considered a proper Islamic curriculum to be taught in the madrasah.

The demand for purist schools took a unique turn in the part of Pakistan, bordering Afghanistan, where universal education has never been adequately provided. These strict fundamentalist madrasahs receive foreign support to teach and house young men with few prospects. There, they learn a crude version of Islam and a fierce contempt for what they see as the moral degeneracy of the West. The savage puritanism of the Taliban regime and its emphasis on militant struggle were born in such madrasahs. They claim to have taught 90 percent of the Taliban leaders who ruled Afghanistan until the recent American intervention.

Probably most Muslims want free access to information, as provided by the satellite dishes dotting the roofs of so many houses in medieval Fes, Morocco. And, if they have the resources, the majority of Muslims would probably chose good modern education along with a preservation of their great tradition of learning. To some Muslims, that tradition means unbounded intellectual inquiry. But others reject it in favor of so called “Islamic authenticity.” How these issues will be resolved will undoubtedly have a major impact on the Muslim community, and perhaps on the world as a whole.

/wnet/religionandethics/files/2011/02/thumb01-madrasahs.jpgIn the aftermath of 9/11, as many Americans tried to learn more about Islam, much was said about “madrasahs.” They are the Islamic schools, some of which, in Pakistan, taught young men not just the Qur’an but terrorism. Madrasahs, it turns out, have a long and distinguished history in the Islamic world and may hold the key to whether Muslim scholars can once again welcome the ideas of others.